


WHAT sugar daddy(s)??

by godlet



Series: WSD Universe [1]
Category: Fantastic Four, Marvel Cinematic Universe, Spider-Man - All Media Types
Genre: Asexual Character, Autism Spectrum, Autistic Peter, MJ fights to be peter's ONLY sugar daddy, Other, Sugar Daddy, Trans Character, obligatory Deadpool cameo, technically
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-16
Updated: 2016-08-10
Packaged: 2018-06-08 11:46:47
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 8
Words: 16,995
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6853342
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/godlet/pseuds/godlet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I've never really thought about it," Peter sniffs, gazing sadly into his mostly empty cup. "Maybe uh... maybe somebody who buys me milkshakes whenever I want? I don't know."</p><p>MJ's eyebrows twitch minutely. "Really?"</p><p>"Yup," Peter says lightly, "really," despite the fact that he feels like he just signed some sort of demonic treaty. "Hey, do you think we could circle back and -"</p><p>"I'll go get you another," MJ tells him as she snatches his previous milkshake, dropping it in a trashcan on her way as she sashays back to the ice-cream store.</p><p>...Weird.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. MJ gets an idea

**Author's Note:**

  * Inspired by [Bi Babes](https://archiveofourown.org/works/6111046) by [Biromantic_Nerd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Biromantic_Nerd/pseuds/Biromantic_Nerd). 



 

“So…” Peter drags out, long limbs swinging slowly in tandem with the slightly taller person next to him. In one hand is her’s, in the other is a rapidly depleting chocolate milkshake. “Have you uh… have you gotten into contact with– with Harry yet?”

 

Mary-Jane shakes her head and smiles a bit cheekily at him. “Nope, but I was planning on it just as soon as I got done with you.”

 

The straw slips from Peter’s mouth as he gives her a playful wide-eyed look of betrayal. “’Done’ with me? What’s that supposed to mean?”

 

“What, you think I came back for the modeling opportunities and pricey rent?” MJ says with one hand placed daintily against her chest as she flutters her eyelashes. “No way, José; I came back for those _damn fine_ legs of yours.”

 

With that, Peter has to stifle a laugh as she kicks the back of one of his heels, tripping him slightly. Thankfully, his spidey-reflexes save him from face planting.

 

“Well, that’s nice to know,” Peter says, a bit red-faced, but maybe more so due to MJ’s crass language than insatiable flirting behavior. “You and Harry both, though – I think I need to, to start a swear jar or something.”

 

MJ snickers, pulling Peter out of the flow of foot traffic and over to an empty bench. “Here, let’s stop. These heels are not giving me a break what-so-ever.”

 

“Really,” Peter drawls a bit obtusely, “towering stilettos? Not comfortable? Who’da thunk it.”

 

MJ laughs loudly, causing Peter to flinch slightly but still grin in response. “Wow – you really haven’t changed from that shit-headed, snot-nosed brat that I used to run around with, huh? You even wear the same dopey, hipster clothes and drink way too much dairy!”

 

Peter only offers a particularly loud draw from his straw and a raised-brow look as an answer, scanning the crowds and people watching while he waits for MJ to be done with wrestling her bright yellow heels off of her feet.

 

MJ groans and flips her long red hair, using Peter’s shoulder as a way to sit back up easier. When she’s only about halfway there, she suddenly tenses, hand shaking Peter with a whispered, “Look, _look!_ Over there, by that fountain!”

 

Peter’s eyes immediately seek out any threats – wrong doings, illegal activities, shady people – but when he finds none, he looks back to MJ, confused.

 

“What– um, what am I looking for, here?” Peter whispers, trying to follow MJ’s furtive line of sight once again for some sort of clue.

 

She physically grabs his chin and points his face in the right direction. Her nails sort of dig in a little bit. “See that girl, right there?”

 

Peter stares. It’s a person who is very tall, also wearing heels – which would probably give Peter the willies, being up so high like that, which is ironic considering his wall-crawling ‘night job’ – and with some of the most colorful hair he’s ever seen, afro-locks braided thinly all down their back nearly reaching to their thighs.

 

“Oh,” Peter mumbles a bit stupidly. How had he not seen them with that much color?

 

“I know, right?” MJ breathes out. “She’s _so_ hot. Honestly, if I wasn’t so sure that the shorter girl next to her was her date, I’d be _all_ over that.”

 

Peter blinks again, shifting to the right slightly now that MJ had let go of his chin. His eyes find a shuffling, mousy looking person who gazes upwards at the colorful-haired person with stars in their eyes as the two left the shaved-ice food cart with their arms looped together.

 

“I wonder how they got all of those colors in their hair,” Peter comments, ceasing to stare as he goes back to the slurping of his milkshake.

 

Huh. Almost empty.

 

MJ swivels around, giving him a narrowed, odd look. “Say, Peter,” she says, positioning herself so that she could sit sideways and stare unnervingly at him with her long-lashed brown eyes. He swallows.

 

“Mmmyup?” Peter responds with, trying to look preoccupied in taking the lid off of his drink and stirring it around with his straw.

 

“Are you dating anyone right now?”

 

Peter stops, and looks up at her. He has to blink a few times before his brain properly registers her expression: searching, conniving, planning.

 

This doesn’t seem good.

 

Still, he answers truthfully. “No, I am not.” And then prays that nothing bad comes of it.

 

“Oh,” is all she responds with, eyes narrowing further before “Have you ever dated anybody?”

 

Briefly, his mind chases an image of Gwen. Sure, they did _things_ together, much like he and MJ were doing right now, but they’d never breached any sort of topic like dating before.

 

Then his mind drifts to Harry. His face does something weird in response.

 

MJ must take that as some sort of signal, because she shifts excitedly in her seat, eyes widening. _“Oooh,_ so is there? Someone? Like, right now? Or maybe in the past? Come on – gimme the deets, you nerd!”

 

…but Peter only slowly shakes his head, mouth puckering slightly as he chews on the insides. “Nah, nothing like that. I was just thinking about Harry and… well, another friend I have. She’s named Gwen. I’ve never dated either of them, though.”

 

“Mmm,” MJ hums, seemingly searching Peter’s face for a few moments before dropping it to play with a lock of her hair. It smells like green apple.

 

“So, hypothetically, if you _could_ date someone,” she speaks up, nearly out of the blue since Peter was expecting her to drop the conversation at that point. “What kind of person would they be?”

 

His face unwittingly scrunches up in that way Aunt May says makes him look like he’s trying to solve the world’s greatest puzzle. He forcefully relaxes it, slightly embarrassed.

 

"I've never really thought about it," Peter sniffs, gazing sadly into his mostly empty cup. "Maybe uh... maybe somebody who buys me milkshakes whenever I want? I don't know."

 

MJ's eyebrows twitch minutely. "Really?"

 

"Yup," Peter says lightly, bobbing his head up and down and steadfastly staring into his cup, "really," despite the fact that he feels like he just signed some sort of demonic treaty. "Hey, do you think we could circle back and -?"

 

"I'll go get you another," MJ tells him as she snatches his previous milkshake, dropping it in a trashcan on her way as she sashays back to the ice-cream store.

 

...Weird.

 

Peter shrugs it off and spends the time waiting by unwinding the green rubber band from around his wrist and quietly, covertly stimming with it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

“Aunt May?” Peter calls into the dark of the house, the blue evening encroaching from the windows barely giving any light. “I’m back!”

 

When he gets no answer, he pulls his phone out of his pocket at the same time that he hops his way upstairs to his bedroom. Belatedly, he realizes that he got a text from Aunt May detailing how they were understaffed at the hospital, and that she would be doing some more overtime.

 

Peter sighs, shoving his guilt at being a poor college student unable to bring in enough income from his photography of his own spandex-covered acrobatics under the bed for another day. Instead, he dumps the numerous shopping bags onto the floor and puts his hands on his hips, staring down at them.

 

What to do with his unexpected, but not unappreciated, loot.

 

His musings are interrupted by the sound of his cellphone ringing. It’s on the quietest setting, but still gives Peter chills and muscle spasms with its volume.

 

“Hey, Harry,” Peter says into the phone. If he sounds a bit tired, then he blames it on the amount of walking and standing that he did today with MJ. “What’s up?”

 

“So I heard that Mary-Jane’s back in town.”

 

Peter snickers slightly. Harry’s deep, throaty, mildly disturbing voice saying something so full of casual dislike fills him with life. He’s really glad that both of his childhood friends were back in one place, no matter how much they might have changed. “Yup, I heard so too… when she dragged me out for a shopping spree all day long.”

 

Harry makes an interested noise, but Peter can tell from the speaking in the background that his friend was probably just trying to avoid some annoying company responsibility or another. “Sounds… exactly like what I would expect from her. What did you get from the thrift store?”

 

Peter flaps a hand next to his head with hilarity at the teasing. “I don’t only shop at the thrift store, you know.” Then he shrugs – not that Harry can see. “But, actually, I didn’t get anything. MJ tried to buy me a whole new closet for some reason. Totally out of control – couldn’t stop her at all.”

 

Where he’s expecting more teasing remarks at his expense, instead he gets silence.

 

So he babbles, uncomfortable and willing to make a fool of himself to get the easy banter back. “She uh – you should’ve seen her face when, when she strong-armed me into getting whatever I wanted, and I came back with a pair of shorts from the uh… from the ‘women’s’ section.” His hand begins to fiddle with the strap of his camera as he hunches in on himself slightly. “She– she says she uhm… she likes my legs. I guess.”

 

Finally, “Really?”

 

The breath whooshes out of Peter’s lungs. “Yea, said it was the only reason she came back to New York.”

 

“Well,” Harry says like he’s doing that thing where he leans back and flips his hair like a model to look down his nose at somebody. “She’s not wrong.”

 

Peter only has a second left of breath before he’s letting it all out in a fit of giggles and other incomprehensible noises of excitement. He has to eventually move the phone away from his face so that he doesn’t accidentally laugh right into the receiver.

 

Harry sighs loudly, mockingly, but with a good dose of humor and teasing. “I see that I have lost contact with the _USS Petership.”_

 

“S-sorry,” Peter gasps out. It’s the only thing he gets out, actually.

 

“I’ll talk to you later, Pete.”

 

“Yup, later!” Peter says into the phone before hanging up. He places a placating hand on his chest as he catches his breath again.

 

A few minutes later, bored of just sitting at his desk chair and staring at the pictures of his wall, Peter stands and begins putting his new clothing away.

 

Still slightly more than baffled by his friends’ senses of humor, he poses a little bit in front of his closet’s full-length mirror.

 

“Leggy legs,” Peter mumbles to himself, almost bursting into laughter again as he looks at his weirdly stick-like legs.

 

His friends are such a riot.

 


	2. when johnny met gwen

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> *minor injuries

 

“This changes _nothing.”_

 

“This changes _everything.”_

 

The two supers – one named Spiderman, the other named The Human Torch – stare each other down from across The Baxter Building medical room.

 

An unmasked Peter, whose head looks like it has just got done bursting open like a gory fire hydrant, points a shaky finger at the smug looking Johnny. “Just because you know my face now doesn’t mean you know my name.”

 

“Peter Parker, age nineteen,” Sue drawls from her position behind Peter’s back. She’s dirty, but mostly unharmed, and has taken up patching Peter after he woke from his slightly scary comatose state. “Goes to ESU as a full-time student and does freelance photography for The Daily Bugle, usually supplying an all-you-can-get buffet of _Spiderman_ photos.”

 

Before Peter can say anything, Johnny’s mouth drops open with a surprised laugh. “You take _pictures_ of _yourself?_ Oh, that’s beautiful, that’s – “ More raucous laughter as Johnny sees fit to turn around and grasp at the wall behind him, one hand ineffectually trying to stifle his chortling.

 

But Peter’s too busy flapping his hands with worry, “How in the world do you know this already?” He tries to turn around and face Sue, but instead winces when all she does is forcefully still him.

 

“Oh, we’ve known for a while,” Sue says lightly, like she didn’t just drop a _bomb_ in the room. Johnny looks as surprised as Peter feels, so he’s guessing that the flaming hero didn’t know this either. “We just didn’t want to scare you away. Plus, Johnny needed a friend who didn’t take any of his shit.”

 

Ignoring Johnny’s indignant _‘hey!’_ (as one does), Peter scrunches up his face with thought. “What do you _mean_ you’ve known for a while? When could I have – _Oh.”_

 

Peter always knew that those ‘sleepovers’ he liked to have here with Johnny when they were both still high school students would come back to bite him in the spandex-clad butt one day.

 

“At first, we didn’t know who it was that was bumbling around our kitchen wearing Johnny’s clothes, acting like they were practically still asleep,” Sue elaborates, a wry smile on her face. “But… sorry, toots, it was just too easy to guess that it was the itty bitty spider who had spent the night before. Finding out who you were afterwards was a piece of cake – albeit a secret one.”

 

So _maybe_ Peter used to have a sleep-walking problem when he first started the vigilante business. He was sort of scarred for life when he ‘woke up’ unmasked in The Baxter Building, deciding to make like a banana and split. He was so sure that he got out of there before anyone saw his face, though…

 

Johnny makes an appalled, gaping face at both Sue and Peter. “Is _that_ why you never came over again? Dude, you could’ve told me – I’ve been thinking this whole time it was because of that one time I –“

 

“Shh! Shush!” Peter waves his arms around wildly as he gives Johnny a frantic look.

 

Sue only raises her eyebrows. “It’s none of my business this time. You’re both adults now.” She finishes bandaging Peter’s head, patting him lightly on the shoulder. “You’re all set, spider-boy. Try not to have any more dramatic fainting spells – Johnny just about went super nova.”

 

“I did not!” Johnny sputters, but his face is an interesting shade of red. “I was just… trying a new move! And it worked, so there!”

 

A loud, droning, clamoring noise comes from the hallway as a familiar voice audibly groans about ‘getting too old for this.’ Everyone’s heads swivel to the door just in time for Ben to stomp his way in.

 

“Hey gang!” He yells above the continued clamoring noise. “What’s Spiderman doin’ here?”

 

 _“Ben!”_ Sue waves an arm to Ben’s left shoulder, which has a continuously hammering Doombot latched on to it. _“You’ve got a cling-on!”_

 

“Oh - whoops” is all Ben grumbles out before he’s crushing the bot with one rocky fist, finally silencing the deafening noise with a _crunch_ and a _hiss._ “Didn’t even feel it there.”

 

“Why would Doctor Doom even make a bot like that? To help fix potholes or something?” Johnny asks incredulously as Peter softly rubs his head around the bandages. He can remember what it felt like to be literally ‘hammered’ in the head with one of those things. It must’ve been what made him pass out in the first place.

 

“Oh, he’s so dreamy,” Peter teases as he stands, wobbles slightly, then pretends to use Johnny as a leaning post when in actuality he feels like he’s going to keel over. Whether it’s from blood loss or the extremely loud Doombot fiasco is anyone’s guess.

 

“Who? _Ben?”_ Johnny questions, bringing one arm up to hold Peter then raising an eyebrow in surprise when he isn’t immediately refuted. “Huh. You look hammered, Spidey.”

 

“Was that a joke – “

 

“Hey, Spidey!” Ben waves from across the room.

 

“See?” Peter says lowly as he waves back. “Dreamy.”

 

“O-kay!” Johnny announces as he hoists Peter up in a haphazard side-carry that soon turns into a full-on when his cargo proves to be unable (or perhaps just unwilling) to walk. “I’m taking you up for a nap.”

 

“Hey, there are perfectly fine beds here,” Sue tries to tell them, but makes no move to stop them either.

 

“He’d rather be in my room, where he isn’t subjected to you two nattering on about politics or whatever it is you do when you think I can’t hear,” Johnny states, rolling his eyes and very obviously staying far away from Ben. “C’mon Spidey – it’ll be like old times."

 

“Like, with the soggy pizza and everything?” Peter asks quietly as his eyes scrunch up from a continued headache.

 

“Sure! That sounds awesome,” Johnny says while giving Peter a weird look. “Man, you really do have a concussion, don’t you.”

 

“Nooo,” Peter groans as Johnny dumps him onto the bed. “We can’t eat… cold pizza, we have to do like, adult things. We’re adults now.”

 

“Why, Spiderman!” Johnny exclaims in a falsetto voice. “I thought you’d never ask.”

 

With that Johnny throws himself onto the bed as well, slightly popping Peter up from his sprawled position and eliciting a groaning laugh from the unmasked hero.

 

“Johnny! Quit it, I’m gonna puke!” Peter warns him, slapping one of his arms with a tired hand.

 

“That’s not sexy,” Johnny remarks, but stops moving the bed around anyway. Seeing Spiderman puke probably wasn’t at the top of his ‘Fun Things to Do with Super-Friends’ list.

 

“No, it’s not,” Peter responds, placing a hand over his eyes and sighing up at the ceiling. “Ugh.”

 

“So...”

 

 _“Ugh,”_ Peter reiterates, hoping that it would stop Johnny from talking.

 

He has no such luck.

 

“Does anybody else know that you’re Spiderman?” Johnny tries to say casually while picking at threads on his bedspread. It comes out sort of quick, though.

 

“Well, just one,” Peter responds tiredly. “Her name’s Gwen and I’ve been friends with her since high school. She’s in England right now, though – studying abroad.”

 

“Whaat? Really? Just one person?” Johnny shuffles a little closer, unperturbed when Peter’s foot comes out to poke him in the chest. “Are you two, like, dating then?”

 

“Mmmnope,” Peter hums out, though his eyes are wide open and staring at the back of his hand.

 

“Oh,” then, “can I have her phone number?”

 

 _“What!?”_ Peter exclaims, sitting up so fast that his chin collides with Johnny’s shoulder. “Ow, ow, ow – when did you get so _close?_ And why is your shoulder so sharp?”

 

“Your _face_ is too sharp!” Johnny complains, rubbing his shoulder.

 

Peter narrows his eyes. “Was that a joke – “

 

“And I didn’t mean it like that!” Johnny pushes on, throwing his arms out as if he could placate the testy-looking hero. “I meant, like, we could be buddies! Who both know who Spiderman is! You know, build a support system for our favorite little arachnid.”

 

Peter rolls his eyes and flops down back onto the bed. “Yea, sure, fine, whatever.” He drags out his cellphone, ignoring Johnny’s frantic questioning over ‘where did you get that? Where are your pockets even? Peter!?’ as he sends Gwen’s number over.

 

“Schweet,” Johnny mumbles. “Does she like gratuitous amounts of emoticons? Or is she a memes kind of gal.”

 

“Wh – you’re texting her? Now?” Peter questions.

 

There’s a moment of silence where Peter stares, open-mouthed and waiting, and Johnny furrows his brow at his phone.

 

A ping erupts from said phone.

 

“She’s already texting back!?” Peter whispers disbelievingly, “No, no way – what did you tell her?”

 

Johnny only snickers, exchanging textual conversation at the speed of light as he gives Peter a once-over, hilarity blooming on his face. “Oh, Petey, oh man, holy moly… We’re practically BFFs at first dabbing gif.”

 

Peter takes a deep breath, closing his eyes briefly. “One; don’t ever say those words out loud within twenty feet of me ever again –“

 

“Twenty feet? How about only ten – “

 

 _“Two,”_ Peter stresses. “Did she just tell you about that one time with the – “

 

“No,” Johnny hastily replies, though from the way he looks like he’s trying to hold in a laugh, Peter can tell that he’s lying.

 

“Aw, barnacles,” Peter hisses out, sliding a hand down his face with a tired groan. His headache really is awful.

 

“Hey, hey,” Johnny is suddenly much too close again, lightly shaking Peter’s shoulder with a wobbling grin on his face. “Who’re MJ and Harry? Are you dating _them?”_

 

“No, jeez!” Peter slaps those twitchy hands away with an annoyed look. “What’s with you people and asking me if I’m dating my friends? I’m not dating anybody!”

 

“Huh,” Johnny mumbles, squinting his eyes at Peter before turning back to his cellphone with a conniving look. “Gwen’ll want to hear about this for sure.”

 

Peter only groans for a third time and curls up on his side, intent on getting at least a little bit of sleep before making some sort of dynamic escape – re-captured mask in tow.

 

“Oh, nononno you don’t, little hero,” Johnny suddenly says, tossing his phone into some deep, dark recess of his room that even Peter’s quick eyes can’t follow. “You need to get out of that suit and eat something. You and I both know you’re not going to nap; you’re going to use it as an excuse to escape while everybody _thinks_ you’re napping.”

 

Peter is rolled off the bed, his traitorously trained feet catching him before he hits the floor as he’s lead to the closet. “Do you even have anything that’ll fit me?”

 

“Sure do, string bean,” Johnny says as he pulls out a navy shirt and gray sweatpants. “Ta-da!”

 

Peter grabs the clothes with a dubious expression. “These… look too big.”

 

Johnny squeals slightly. “I know. Quick, go put them on!”

 

“This is some kind of ploy, isn’t it,” Peter comments lightly, but heads towards the half-bathroom anyway. He doesn’t bother closing the door, just disappears behind the wall and begins stripping and replacing his worn, dirty suit with the soft pajamas. “You and Gwen – in cahoots.”

 

“Mhm, whatever you say Spidey,” Johnny says absentmindedly as he sets up his phone as a camera. “Do you think you can pose when you come out?”

 

“I suppose you want me to uh… to say some sort of catchphrase while I’m at it? Like ‘cheese’?”

 

“’Flame-on’ should do it.”

 

“Naturally,” Peter rolls his eyes and steps out of the bathroom, holding up one hand before Johnny can take a single photo. “What do I get out of this, though?”

 

“Um…” Johnny raises both of his eyebrows and puts out a hand palm-up as an invisible offer. “I’ll let you wear one of my binders?”

 

“Deal,” Peter says immediately. Binders equal pressure stim heaven. They could also be equated to the same category as weighted blankets.

 

“Hey, come on!” Johnny calls. “I’m waiting for my ‘flame on’ here!”

 

Peter sighs and rolls his eyes, looking upwards towards the ceiling for a moment before doing something funny with his legs that makes Johnny laugh and snap a photo.

 


	3. harry starts a war

 

Peter thanks the polite, run-down, possibly-half-drunk-with-the-abhorrence-of-capitalism employee and returns to the table where Harry waits. His friend is doing that silly pose that makes them look like a diabolical leader, hands steepled in front of their serious face.

 

“What’d you get?” Harry asks conversationally, fingers rubbing over one of his simple silver rings that most likely cost more than Peter will ever own at a single time.

 

“I have no idea,” Peter responds truthfully, shaking his head and looking a bit wild-eyed down at the slightly sticky table. “But I’m five dollars shorter, so I’m hoping it’s big.”

 

“Aw, Pete,” Harry sighs and lowers his hands to the table, giving Peter a concerned look. “You’ve got to get over your social issues. You’ve done this same routine since we were, what – ten?”

 

“Social– _my_ social issues?” Peter chuckles incredulously, flicking the side of one of Harry’s hands. “Well at least I’m not hiding up in my- my billion dollar tower every day, looking down on people like the uh, the _world’s scion.”_

 

“’The world’s scion’; I like that,” Harry smiles and licks his lips, stretching too-long-since used muscles in his face and crinkling his eyes. “How long have you been thinking of me like that up in that big head of yours, I wonder.”

 

“Just uh…” Peter looks over his shoulder to hide a smirk. “A couple of years. Y’know. Maybe a– maybe the whole time I’ve known you. Just maybe.”

 

“Jesus, Pete,” Harry breathes in sharply, never really the one to let himself laugh while in public.

 

“Hey, c’mon,” Peter grins, folding his arms on the table. “You’ve probably thought that I’ve had a big head since day one, haven’t you?”

 

Harry shakes his head once and opens both of his palms, looking smug and smirk-y. “Guilty as charged.”

 

“No!” Peter giggles, patting the table with one hand in lieu of flapping. “I– I was joking, it’s all in the hair! It’s all in the, the puffy hair, I’m telling you!”

 

“Excuses, excuses,” Harry drawls. “I’ve always known that you’d grow up to be Jimmy Neutron’s clone offspring.”

 

The rest of their teasing conversation is drawn up short when an employee walks over with a tray balanced in their hands. Peter smiles kindly and makes sure to thank them, Harry using the distracted time to replace his big sunglasses and hat to at least marginally hide his identity.

 

“What’s that look for?” Harry asks as Peter begins unwrapping the mystery burger in front of him, giving it odd looks, but giving Harry even odder ones.

 

“Oh, nothing,” Peter responds, but his mouth is doing that twitchy thing when it wants to smile and give it all away. Sometimes he wishes he could wear the mask all of the time, if only to drag out any sarcastic or situational comedy for even longer without being betrayed by laughing at his own jokes. “I’m just– I was just wondering why people seem to think that sunglasses and an old dad hat are gonna– is gonna hide their identity.”

 

Harry gives him an interested look. “And what other bigshots do you know that need disguises like I do, Peter? And, no – Mary-Jane doesn’t count.”

 

Peter swallows his hastily taken bite of burger – bacon and cheese and something leafy, which is okay he guesses, just not something he’d really choose for himself – and hopes that his expression isn’t too ‘deer caught in the headlights.’

 

“Well- uh, well” he begins, _well_ aware of Harry’s piercing gaze. It’s sort of comical to see it right next to a colorfully wrapped burger. “I’ve noticed a uh, a pattern? Right? So, these people, like- like Captain America and Tony Stark and, well… the Avengers,” Peter lets go of his burger in favor of holding an invisible model in his hands. It helps to block out Harry’s eyes. “They always seem to uh, seem to wear the exact same disguise, you know?”

 

“And I’m guessing that all of this comes from your job of stalking the resident masked vigilante?” Harry says, twirling the straw in his drink. It makes him look a little bit dangerous, actually.

 

“Yes. Yup! Exactly,” Peter punctuates this with a nervous finger-gun shot at Harry’s head. He then takes a big bite of his burger, praying that he managed to fumble his way out of the woods this time.

 

“So, your motto is to just follow the only guy in big sunglasses and an,” Harry smiles a little here, “’old dad hat’ and you get your pictures?”

 

“Well,” Peter chews for a few moments, pretending to think about it. “No, not really. Spiderman isn’t exactly the person who needs to hide his – er, their identity, you know?” Peter shrugs, looking away. “I– I just happen to be in, in the right place at the right time, it’s all about luck and such. Anybody could do it. Why me, actually? I dunno. I’m just– I’m just Peter Parker. With the puffy hair that makes my head look big.”

 

Well aware that he essentially just rambled any sense of comfortable atmosphere away, Peter fiddles with the plastic wrapping that used to cling to his burger. It smears small pockets of grease on his fingers, making him slightly more conscious of the callouses on his hands from the daily duty of being Spiderman. They mostly came from hard hitting and swinging, but not wall crawling, as the micro hairs on his palms do that work for him.

 

He briefly wonders if his callouses could make wall crawling harder for him if they encroach on the micro hairs…

 

“I suppose you would meet quite a few… interesting people on the job,” Harry concedes finally, breaking the tension in the air with a single hand wave. “Isn’t everyone in a general hubbub, still hunting for Spiderman’s identity even after three and a half years?”

 

“The Avengers and the NYPD both, yeah,” Peter says, chewing on the insides of his mouth with consideration. “I don’t think they’ll find it out, though. They’re uh– Spiderman’s pretty slippery.”

 

“But not slippery enough to keep away from your camera, huh?” Harry teases, flashing a smirk at Peter.

 

Peter gives a crooked grin back. “Nope!”

 

“Well, Pete,” Harry says, tipping his sunglasses low to look at him over the rim. “I’d say that if you were a part of my paparazzi, I’d be up a creek.”

 

The two finish up their meal surrounded by gregarious chatter, throwing their greasy trash away and getting a very blasé look from the on-duty employee. Apparently, the person is so dead inside that possibly glimpsing Harry Osborn at their day job barely even phases them out of corporate apathy.

 

Peter, ever the one to be easily distracted and stare into space at the wrong time and place – mostly due to his spidey-senses acting up, with micro aggressions like glaring setting it off – is dragged around by a slightly-more-excited-than-usual Harry, sometimes – embarrassingly – by the belt loops, when the shorter person doesn’t feel like reaching any further up to guide their friend.

 

 

* * *

 

 

He gets home, kisses Aunt May hello, disappears into his room to patch up the remainder of the damage to his suit, then proceeds to reach into his back pocket on habit, only to discover several folded pieces of paper.

 

Peter makes a surprised noise. He never really puts anything in the back pockets since he is afraid that he’d sit down somewhere and the thing would find its way out if he kept sitting and standing so frequently, as skinny pants were often wont to do.

 

Imagine his surprise when what he pulls up towards his face is not the assumed forgotten receipts he might’ve stashed back there, but instead several fifty dollar bills.

 

“What the heck,” Peter mumbles. Then something clicks in his brain, and he can’t help but verbalize a slightly confused _“Harry!?”_

 

As if there were some sort of coincidental divine intervention at play, his cell phone rings. He picks up without checking to see what the caller ID is, nearly entirely assured in his assumptions.

 

“Is there a reason that you stuffed a hundred and fifty dollars in the back of my pants?”

 

“Um,” there’s a chewing noise, then a swallowing one. “What?”

 

“Oh, MJ,” Peter breathes out in both surprise and embarrassment. He probably should’ve checked the ID. “Hey, uhm, what– what’s up? What do you need?”

 

“Well, now it doesn’t matter what _I_ want; whatever you’ve got going on sounds _way_ more interesting,” MJ says before more chewing sounds erupt over the line. “Go ahead; tell me about how someone stuffed money down your pants and you didn't notice. I’m ready.”

 

Peter resists rolling his eyes at the behavior, intent on focusing solely on the conundrum at hand. “Well, I just got back from uh, from painting the town red with Harry – “

 

“Sounds raunchy,” MJ interrupts with.

 

“Oh, you know how dangerous it gets at that– at those fast food joints,” Peter throws back teasingly. Although there is some truth – fast food places did tend to get held up at gun point a lot this time of the year. “Anyway – I just so happened to check my back pocket, and I find three _fifties_ shoved in there.”

 

“Ooh, shit, really?” MJ says in between chewing. Sounds like popcorn, which is at least mildly situationally hilarious. As if Peter’s life could get anymore movie-worthy already. He was a _masked vigilante_ born of a bioengineered spider bite for pumpernickel’s sake!

 

“Yea, and I’m at least…” Peter does some mental calculations that take only a few seconds, being largely theoretical. “At least 90% sure that it was Harry. I mean, nobody else touched me? And, come to think of it,” Peter mumbles a little bit, more so to himself than to MJ, “he was grabbing me down there a lot more than really necessary.”

 

There’s the sound of MJ possibly spitting out a mouthful of liquid. “He _touched_ your _butt!?”_

 

Peter can’t help but imagine MJ taking a spit take with a can of soda. “What? No, no, he uh, he kept grabbing my– my belt loops. Like I was– I kept accidentally stopping in the middle of foot traffic, you know how I am.”

 

“That little weasel,” MJ growls a bit dangerously, leading Peter to believe that she didn’t hear a thing that he just said. “Ugh, I should’ve _known_ he’d try to get in on this.”

 

Peter finally gives in to the urge to roll his eyes. “Er, okay – I’m gonna go ahead and call Harry and… And get him to take his money back, I guess.”

 

_“No!”_

 

Peter pulls his face away from the phone at the loud noise, rubbing slightly at his ear despite knowing that it most likely wouldn’t help. “Yeesh, MJ, what’s - ?”

 

“Just, uhm…” What sounds like someone furiously writing on paper fuzzes over the speakers. Peter isn’t willing to press his ear any closer to the phone to try and hear it, however, having learned his lesson that, yes, MJ could get very loud if she wanted to. “Uhm… Keep it! And come spend it with me tomorrow!”

 

“What?” Peter asks, confused and unwilling. “No, MJ, I’m not– I can’t just accept _this much – “_

 

“Oh, Peter,” MJ chastises, “that man is rich! I mean, _obviously_ he must’ve given it to you for a reason.” A pause. “Maybe he feels guilty about leaving you alone for all of those years.”

 

“Aww, MJ,” Peter breathes out, one hand coming up to brush through his hair. “It’s not either of your all’s faults for moving away like that. You had, y’know… Better stuff to do in other places than here. I don’t blame you for leaving.”

 

“Peter!” MJ whines. Peter can imagine her tossing her head back and swishing her hair around like a mane, possibly even stomping one foot lightly on the ground. It’s a very charming visual – not that he’d ever admit that to her. “You’re gonna make me cry!”

 

“…Oh,” Peter whispers a bit dumbly. Because oh.

 

Barely even a second passes before MJ is speaking again, sounding as if the past few exchanged emotionally charged sentences never happened. “I know what you can do to make it up to me.”

 

“MJ!” Now it was Peter’s turn to whine. “I feel like I just robbed a bank!”

 

“Great! Now you know what being rich feels like.” MJ tells him, chirping and matter-of-fact. “I’m only gonna be here for a few more weeks – we have to go out and do something!” She gasps excitedly. “Oh, I know! We could go watch a _movie.”_

 

“And then you’ll drag me out shopping,” Peter remarks, although there’s a resigned tone to his voice. “Yeah – I get the picture.”

 

“Sooo… You’ll go?”

 

Peter sighs, throwing his head back so that it lightly thumps against the wall next to his bed and letting the silence sit on the line for a few breathes. “Yes. Fine. I’ll go.”

 

“Fuck yea!” MJ squeals. “See ya’ later, _neeeerd.”_

 

Peter drops the disconnected phone out of his hand and onto the bed underneath him, letting the day’s events and the previous conversation wash over him in a thoughtful wave.

 

He has no idea what he’s going to even say to Harry the next time they talk, much less meet.

 

Peter’s tumultuous thoughts are put on hold by both a frankly concerning text from a teasing Gwen and the future duty of patching up his suit before Spiderman’s nightly patrol.

 


	4. gwen gets wind

 

“I found a new mashup song you might like,” Gwen tells him over the chatting service. Her bright white and yellow hair takes up most of the screen. She’s always put the camera too close to her face, which is only possible because she has an un-attached webcam.

 

Then Peter glimpses something odd, colorful, and packaged behind her as she scoots her desk chair even closer; he’s guessing that she does it on purpose, hoping that he won’t notice.

 

“Really?” Peter says lightly, biting his lips as he places his head atop his folded hands. “Well; send it on over, maestro.”

 

Gwen can’t seem to help the little giggle that escapes her at his nickname as she busies herself with clicking and staring at other parts of the screen. Her dark eyelashes move up and down the way her pupils do. “So, what’s been going on over in certain poverty and nightly crime land?”

 

“Certain poverty and nightly crime, but of course,” Peter teases with a straight face. “Nothing that the, the _Avengers_ can’t handle, though – don’t you worry, young miss.”

 

Gwen scrunches her nose up as she tries to hold in a laugh. “Are you saying that you’re a part of the Avengers now or are you – “

 

“No, no, I am _not_ a part of the Avengers,” Peter says hurriedly while scrubbing a hand through his hair. “That’s- I’m still safe, I think. Harry got the- got a _little bit_ too close but I’m good. We’re good.”

 

“How did Harry get close?” Gwen asks shortly. Her attention is still mostly focused on loading the song and sending it over.

 

“Well, with how he is – you might remember all those times that I – “

 

“Talked my ear off about every possible angle of his perceived character and subconscious?” Gwen raises an eyebrow, taking the time to look directly at the camera, thus staring into Peter’s eyes. “Yup, I sure do remember that. Heads up.”

 

Peter makes a scrunched up face of several emotions while accepting the download link. “Oh- okay, so maybe I was kind of hyper focused on Harry that day. It was right after he came back and, um,” Peter scrubs a hand through his hair again. It probably looks like the business end of a toilet brush now. “Yea. Well. Anyway – he was just doing that thing where he’s skeptical of everything anyone says. No biggie. I got out of it.”

 

“You know,” Gwen remarks with a pleased little smile. “If I didn’t know that you’ve spent the last four some-odd years keeping a secret super identity, I probably would also be skeptical of your claimed abilities to ‘get out of it.’”

 

Peter gives her a crooked grin that never fails to make at least one person roll their eyes. “Yea, well, I – Oh!” He slaps a hand on the desk table, giving Gwen a pair of incredibly wide eyes full of animation. “You’ll never believe what Harry did to me the other day.”

 

“What? What did he do?” Gwen questions, Peter’s apparent excitement rubbing off on her.

 

Peter flaps his hands a few times, biting his lip. It might be to keep in a smile, it might also be to exert some energy. “After we tromped all over downtown, I came home and found out that he shoved, like, a hundred and fifty dollars in my back pocket!”

 

Disappointingly, Gwen doesn’t look as floored or surprised as he feels. “Yea, so? I’ve done that before, too.”

 

Peter’s mind screeches to a comical halt.

 

“Wait, wha –“

 

“I mean,” she continues, acting unheedful of Peter’s sputtering. Whether she’s doing it on purpose or not, he can’t tell. “I never snuck you a hundred and fifty, but, overall… Why are you looking at me like that?”

 

“Gwen!” Peter squeaks, at least 60% scandalized right now. “Not you too!”

 

“What?” Gwen whips her head to stare directly into the camera, eyebrows scrunched together. “Who else is leaving money for you in obvious places? Besides the vaguely romantic childhood friend who sleeps in a bed of money every night.”

 

Peter groans and smushes his hands to his face. He elects to ignore that last statement. “MJ – did I ever talk about Mary-Jane?” Gwen shakes her head slowly. “Oh, well… Anyway. MJ and Harry and you, too – how long have people been dumping money into my lap?”

 

“Probably forever, Pete,” Gwen says softly, thinning her lips and giving him a kind look at she nods her head. “You’re just – you’re so – It was just so easy to take advantage of that oblivious kindness you seem to exude! When you're not brooding on the tallest tower you can find, or ready to go beat somebody into the concrete, I mean.”

 

 _“Gwen!”_ Peter exclaims one more time; 70% scandalized and climbing.

 

“Though I guess now that you seem to have gained a disproportionate amount of rich friends,” Gwen eyes him up and down his chest, which is the only surface area that the facially positioned camera will allow. “I see that I’ve been run out of business since I left.”

 

 _“Bwuh_ \- um, well” Peter flails. He can’t tell if Gwen is actually bummed out or teasing. “That- that’s not true! You uh, you’ve got first dibs on the compelling mashup song market! That’s, that’s _wildly important,_ let me tell you…”

 

Thankfully, his rambling seems to have done the trick, as Gwen is laughing and thumping a hand lightly against her chest as she rocks backwards. “Yea, yea – alright. No need to butter me up.” She takes a big breath and leans even closer to the screen, a slightly conniving look forming. “So, what does the great Johnny Storm give you, then? Not counting his, quote on quote, ‘magnificent presence.’”

 

If Peter had been drinking something, this would be the part where he would do a spit take. Instead, he can only gape unattractively like a fish out of water. _“What!?_ What do you- has Johnny been- I thought we agreed _not_ to talk about Johnny! _Gwennn!”_

 

80% scandalized – it just never stops.

 

Gwen tosses her head back and laughs some more. “Who ever said that _I_ agreed not to talk about Johnny – I _love_ that expression you've got on right now, Peter, come on, let’s talk about Johnny. I wanna talk about Johnny as soon as possible.”

 

Something in Peter gives up. He watches it go with a forlorn and resigned mien. “This is it- I’m, I’m – he saves my life sometimes, so there you go, is that what you wanted to hear? That all of you are very, very outclassed in this whole ‘give Peter things because he’s mostly unaware and it’s hilarious’ contest because, technically, Johnny wins. You’re all done. Fired. I’m- I’m calling for a divorce. You get everything.”

 

After that little spiel, Peter leans back and crosses his arms, trying not to break out into a grin at Gwen heartily beating the table with one limp hand and encouraging a laughing fit with her own snort-filled one.

 

“I’m telling- “ Gwen stops to suck in some air, snorting once again in that adorable way. “I’m telling Johnny.”

 

Peter gasps, 100% scandalized. He simply cannot get anymore scandalized than this. “Don’t you dare, Gwen!”

 

Too late. Gwen’s face is undeniably smug as the quick _ping_ of her phone announces the textual presence of The Human Torch.

 

“I never should have given him your number,” Peter tells her gravely.

 

“Aww, but look how cute you were!” Gwen coos as she sends over the photo Johnny took of him in the oversized shirt and sweatpants.

 

“Thanks,” Peter says shortly. “I had a concussion.”

 

“Johnny says you’re just complaining, and that you were mostly healed by the time that was taken,” Gwen reads off of her phone, giving Peter a haughty look.

 

“Tell Johnny I said that I hope he falls in somebody’s pool,” Peter sniffs, standing primly. “I’m going on patrol.”

 

“Aw, baby don’t go!” Gwen says in an awful parody of Johnny’s usual throaty drawl. It’s all Peter needs in order to get the nasty realization that Johnny and Gwen have most definitely been exchanging words over the phone. “Johnny wants to know if you’re going to visit him – “

 

“No, I am not,” Peter says as he makes some very sad and flappy jazz hands at the camera, unearthing his red suit from within a hidden compartment in his closet and raising an eyebrow at the screen. “Is this a peep show?”

 

Gwen giggles, putting her phone down on her desk despite its rapid _ping_ ing noises. “Hey, Peter?”

 

“Mmyup?” He doesn’t like that look on her face.

 

“Remember that blanket that had the ribs and striations on it that you said looked like it would feel like heaven?”

 

“…Vaguely.” He can recall every single aspect of it. He’s practically dreamed of running his fingers over that blanket since he first saw it in that online catalogue.

 

Gwen only hums, puckering her lips and side-eyeing the boy on the other end of the camera as she reaches over and prepares to turn off her webcam. “Well – don’t let me keep you from saving the damsels and innocents of New York.”

 

Peter eyes her suspiciously, but concedes with a nod. “Yup. Off to go uh… stop some of the numerous muggings and general shenanigans what go on in the dark.”

 

His high school friend blinks kindly at him. “Stay safe, okay Peter?” And then she switches off the webcam, hanging up the overseas face-call.

 

This leaves Peter to stand – awkward, stagnant, and half-dressed – in his room as he absentmindedly fingers the spandex of the top half of his suit.

 

Why in the world would Gwen bring up that blanket? Was it to tease him for his never-ending search for textured objects to stim with?

 

He quickly dismisses the idea – Gwen would never tease him for something like that. She herself is an ‘autistic cousin’; a driving force in public school that is now in a private college in England despite whatever hardships her ADHD might bring with or without accommodations.

 

Peter’s nose twitches faintly as he pulls the mask over his head, securing the thin margin between the top and the neck so that the suit appears seamless instead of broken into parts.

 

He gets the vague impression in the back of his mind that dismissing these ideas so easily will come back to turn him upside-down later as he crawls sneakily out his window, easily and silently leaping onto the taller buildings surrounding his home.

 

He also has the not-so-vague impression of bright flames on the back of his eyelids when he blinks. He sighs, shaking his head, taking to the skyscrapers of downtown with a deft shot of his webs and swinging into action.

 

Spiderman’s senses perk at the sound of a tussle only a few streets away. He allows his thoughts to focus and tunnel, deciding to deal with the situation later.

 


	5. johnny trips, lands, and trips again

 

Peter awkwardly shuffles his way out of Jonah Jameson’s office, shutting the door behind him and rubbing one ear with the heel of his hand. He tries his best to walk steadily down the slightly too cool hallways of The Daily Bugle despite the inherently wary beating of his heart after being yelled at. Even so, his fingers tap nervously on the side of his neck as he rides the elevator down to the bottom floor.

 

He holds the swinging camera around his chest still as he gives a slightly awkward nod to the secretary up front. They have a sympathetic look about them that never fails to make itself known every time Peter shows up and is subsequently hassled by Jameson for his photo taking skills and subject.

 

Apparently, the tabloid newspaper known for its “controversial” hero-bashing ways has a boss that doesn’t like Spiderman. Who knew.

 

Peter takes distinct notice of the front paper today – a completely flattering photo of The Human Torch posing heroically in front of a sunny backdrop. Jameson has never published a “controversial” comment or forwarded an uncouth photo of Johnny before. Compare that to sometime last week’s front page: Spiderman sitting in a pile of steamy compost, courtesy of a tricky Sinister Six up to no good.

 

The young vigilante purses his lips and retrieves a copy of the newspaper, shoving it into his shoulder bag as he silently bids the secretary farewell.

 

Which is, of course, right about when Johnny Storm comes strolling in the front doors.

 

Peter hears the way the secretary behind him has a quiet choking fit on their coffee as he pretends to be utterly surprised and _totally not exasperated_ to catch sight of the famous Fantastic Four member. He’s not sure if he fully covers up the grumpy sigh that threatens to come out, though.

 

“Hel- _lo,”_ Johnny drawls as he saunters in, hands in his jacket pockets. “Don’t mind me, hard-working citizens. I’m just here to pick up a uh…” He buffs his nails on the front of his barely hidden blue uniform like a pompous jerk. _“Special buddy_ of mine.”

 

“That’s nice,” Peter blurts out semi-sarcastically before he can help it. “I’m sure that –“ Peter takes a quick gander over his shoulder to read the name plate on the counter “ – that Msr. El-Hashem can help you find your uh… ‘special buddy.’”

 

With that, Peter goes to walk past Johnny. Johnny moves with him, causing him to halt only two steps forward towards the doors.

 

“Oh, um, actually,” Johnny says quickly, “I just forgot – they’re going to meet me somewhere else. Whoops! Must’ve slipped my mind! Haha…”

 

The secretary shifts in their seat, watching the sudden collision between Peter Parker: resident in-and-out photographer and practical legend of the office, and Johnny Storm: city-wide famous superhero and part of an equally famous superhero team.

 

"Sooo..." Johnny rocks back on his heels, eyes wide as he seems to take in Peter's face through several roving looks. He apparently has yet to get over Spiderman’s secret identity reveal. "Wanna go get coffee?"

 

"I'm kind of busy right now, but uh- I'm sorry," Peter squints up at them, doing his best to pretend that he doesn’t want to clock the other person in the jaw, "but are you Johnny Storm?"

 

"Whaat?" Johnny bursts out with, strained laughter filling the air. He must finally understand why Peter’s face seems to have a stressed tic to it. "No, why- why would you say that? Of _course_ I'm not - "

 

Peter pulls out a newspaper from its previously deposited position in a shoulder bag, shoving it forward with the front line news on top. It's a very clear, colored picture of Johnny's grinning face as he stands, suited up and proud, next to The Fantastic Four.

 

"Oh," is all Johnny says.

 

"Oh," Peter echoes. "’Oh’ is right. Now, could you please excuse me? I've got an entirely different spandex clad hero to photograph."

 

Peter pushes past Johnny – politely, mind you – and heads for the door once again. He most definitely does not stomp his feet. Not at all.

 

Johnny mouths a theatrically incredulous ‘can you believe this guy?’ at the slightly stunned secretary before jogging out the door to catch up. He punctuates this by slinging an arm around Peter’s shoulders.

 

“Yeesh, _Mr. Parker,”_ Johnny says into Peter’s ear, “could you have been more obvious? I mean, it’s not like I didn’t walk in there without a _plan_ – Ow! Ow ow _ow,_ watch it, watch the hair!”

 

Peter yanks on Johnny’s ear as he drags the other hero into a nearby alley. He only releases the squawking person once they’re mostly enclosed and entirely alone.

 

 _“What are you doing here?”_ Peter questions harshly, spinning on one foot and getting up under Johnny’s nose. He hopes that his face looks angry enough, because he has no shortage of annoyance in his system right now.

 

Johnny sniffs haughtily, brushing off his clothes despite the fact that Peter never touched him there. “What? Can’t a guy who, _uh,_ routinely saves your life,” Johnny leans in close and opens his eyes wide, “come and visit his best buddy at work sometimes?”

 

Peter just rolls his eyes, then bops Johnny on the nose so that they would stop breathing on him. The fight sort of leaves you when Johnny Storm’s lip has a slight wobble to it.

 

Johnny reels back, blinking rapidly, clearly not expecting such a soft reaction. “Was that a love tap?”

 

“Johnny,” Peter groans. “What are you _really_ doing here, flame brain?”

 

Now Johnny looks a little bit more unsure of himself. Clearly, he was expecting a lot more ‘playful banter’ as he likes to call it. “Well, after Gwen and I had that uh…” He clears his throat and gives Peter an unreadable look. “That _conversation,_ I thought that maybe we could, you know, start hanging out more often? Maybe? Yes? No? Please stop waggling your eyebrows at me, Peter, they look like demented caterpillars.”

 

Peter laughs lightly and ceases his waggling eyebrow game. “You literally have my phone number, Johnny, I don’t- I’m not going anywhere. You could’ve just called me or something.”

 

Johnny shrugs so hard he temporarily gives himself a second chin. “Eh – but without the presence of my physically dazzling charms, how could I compete with that thing you have with, who was it, Mary-Ann and Henry?”

 

 _“Mary-Jane_ and _Harry.”_

 

“Yea yea, whatever,” Johnny waves a hand. “Anyway – “

 

“And we don’t have a, a,” Peter flaps his hands against his thighs, searching for the rest of the sentence. “A _thing._ They’re my friends!” Who apparently have a hidden agenda that includes money.

 

Johnny gets a conniving look in his eye. It is remarkably similar to Gwen’s plotting twinkle, only a hair more likely to become exasperating in some aspect or another rather than ‘charming.’ “And then there was that _thing_ with _Deadpool – “_

 

 _“Don’t,”_ Peter strains, hands flying up as fast as a pouncing tiger to silence Johnny. “Do not speak about Deadpool. Ever.”

 

Peter’s first meeting with Deadpool had been Johnny’s _nth_ meeting with Deadpool, much to the consternation of The Four. It was also, as any hapless bystanders had ubiquitously decided, the _last_ meeting with Deadpool that Spiderman would ever willingly conduct.

 

The ‘event’ lasted all of ten seconds.

 

It started moderately disturbing, wherein Deadpool had sucked up smoke from his gun, blew it all over Peter’s face as he spoke, said something about Roman and Greek architecture or art, then proceeded to engage in the _Unauthorized Hip Grab of the Century._

 

It ended with Peter’s foot colliding with the side of Deadpool’s head, leaving a particularly heavy indent in the concrete as Peter most certainly did not hold back his strength like he usually did.

 

Needless to say, Peter found out that the mercenary (proper, honest to god _assassin._ What the heck) had accelerated healing powers fairly quickly that day.

 

“He still sends gift baskets to City Park Hall,” Peter groans and pinches the bridge of his nose like he could stave off the embarrassing memory. “I don’t know _why_ Deadpool assumes that Spiderman lives at City Hall. I don’t. It just- it, it, it _baffles_ the apple _pie_ out of me!”

 

Johnny raises an interested eyebrow. “Okay, alright – no more Deadpool mentions. I got’cha, Spidey.”

 

“And don’t call me Spidey when I’m not suited up,” Peter warns, pulling out his _ping_ ing phone to check its messages and ignoring the scoff that Johnny makes.

 

Confusingly, there’s only one message from Gwen. All it says is a fairly cryptic ‘I think that you should go to the Baxter Building with Johnny’ and a winky face.

 

“Oh, uh…” Johnny pipes up, leaning toward Peter to peek over the side of the phone. “That… was, uhh… That part of the conversation should have come up earlier.”

 

Peter scrunches his face in confusion, then freezes with realization.

 

“You know, she would’ve… she would’ve chimed in at the approximate right time for this conversation to _flow – “_

 

 _“You two,”_ he states direly. Johnny looks specifically cowed and guilty. “This is another- another _in cahoots_ thing, isn’t it?”

 

Whatever Johnny is about to say is interrupted by a very familiar droning noise. It races down one street and flies past the alley, giving a split second visage of a troop of what could only be Doombots all struggling to carry something large, shiny, and most likely expensive morphing into diabolical.

 

“Um,” Peter says intelligently.

 

“Should we - ?”

 

“Yes, yup, let’s go.”

 

Peter races over to crouch behind a conveniently placed dumpster while Johnny begins shucking off his jacket and pants.

 

“Man,” Johnny takes the time to groan despite the situation. “Sue’s gonna kill me if I keep losing clothes like this.”

 

“Nah,” Peter says. “Just put it here with my stuff and I can swing by later and get it.”

 

Johnny walks over with his flammable, non-uniform clothing items in hand to stare down at the rapidly stripping Peter with interest.

 

“Huh,” the Fantastic Four member remarks. “I always wondered how you, y’know… Got around and stuff without anybody catching you.”

 

“What did you _think_ I was doing?” Peter asks shortly as he replaces his sneakers with the thin web shoes.

 

“Well, I always figured that you may or may not have been several hundred spiders in a trench coat.”

 

Peter laughs loudly as he leaps to his feet, deftly shoving the bag full of their clothes under the dumpster and latching onto the side of the adjacent building. He has to shield his eyes when Johnny bodily bursts into flames, webbing himself to a taller building soon after and trying not to focus on the way his weight dips and scatters his insides.

 

Johnny crows an excited yell as he flies next to a swinging Spiderman, startling even more grounded citizens as the two chase the troop of Doombots through the city.

 


	6. gwen vs. johnny

 

“So…” Peter drawls hesitantly, barely toeing into Johnny’s room as he watches the other super half-jog excitedly over to the closet. “What is it that you wanted to show… me?”

 

Peter’s eyes widen under his mask as Johnny hauls what appears to be a colorfully wrapped box out of the messy closet. Johnny pretends to struggle with it for a few moments before putting it on the bed.

 

“Ta-da!” Johnny does some pretty spectacular jazz hands before accosting Peter and shoving him over to the side of the bed. “It just came in this morning!”

 

Peter only dubiously eyeballs the package before looking up into Johnny’s face over his shoulder. The super is waggling their eyebrows.

 

“It’s… not my birthday,” Peter tells him. He only works his jaw a bit as his face falls.

 

“Yea, and things would’ve gone a _lot smoother_ last time if you had just…” Johnny mimes crushing something between his hands with a strained smile, _“told me your birthday.”_

 

“It’s June 22nd.”

 

Peter spins around to the location of the familiar voice, most certain that the unwanted fact had not come from his own. He comes up short when all he can see is a blackened computer screen and an otherwise empty room.

 

Johnny makes a soft ‘oh’ sound before walking over to the desktop and jiggling the mouse. “Forgot to do this first.”

 

“Oh, I’m sure you ‘forgot’,” Gwen Stacy says scathingly from her digital presence on the face-to-face call of the computer. “Just like how you ‘forgot’ to tell me what happened during this ‘last time’ you two were discussing.”

 

“Yea, okay, _but!”_ Johnny holds up a finger. Peter stares on incredulously as his two friends appear to naturally banter. It is very worrying. _“Nobody_ told me this was a competition; I could’ve won _ages_ ago!”

 

“Johnny,” Peter interrupts with, placing one arm across his waist and one resting on his chest in a curl. “This _isn’t_ a competition.”

 

“Yes it is,” Johnny says assuredly. “And I’m pretty sure that I started it, like, a year ago or something.”

 

“Actually – “

 

“For my last ‘birthday’,” Peter begins while shooting an apologetic look at Gwen, who he just strategically interrupted. He took a leap of faith and assumed that he could derail her from revealing any more unwanted facts with new ‘juicy’ info. “Which, wasn’t even my birthday – “

 

“That’s because you wouldn’t tell me when it was,” Johnny grumbles. He is ignored.

 

“ – for my last birthday,” Peter reiterates, this time towards the girl on the screen, “he got me a bouquet of assorted red flowers.”

 

Gwen’s eyebrows tent with surprise. “That’s sweet.”

 

No, it wasn’t. “It was _on fire.”_

 

“It was a specialty!” Johnny defends, loudly covering up Gwen’s theatrical "on _fire_ \- oh me, oh my."

 

“The Daily Bugle thought we we’re trying to kill each other for an entire week!” Peter complains, mentally wincing at the memory. To say that ‘that was bad for my publicity’ was severely downplaying it.

 

“That’s because you _were_ trying to kill me for a week,” Johnny reminds.

 

 _“Because you got me a fiery plant for my birthday!”_ He had to swing around with a scorched suit and a damaged pride at publicly squealing and flailing the flaming flowers. Because the idiot had decided to ‘surprise’ him in the middle of a bustling Times Square that day.

 

“You _said_ it wasn’t your birthday, so that one doesn’t count.” Johnny looks smugly between the incredulously fuming Peter and the raised-eyebrow Gwen sitting placidly in England. “Face it, Spidey; I totally win this thing.”

 

Peter grabs the sides of his masked head and practically growls. “Win _what_ thing!?”

 

“He doesn’t stutter when he wears the mask,” Johnny notes to Gwen, who nods her head and purses her lips in response. “Can’t believe I didn’t notice that earlier.”

 

“I know, right? It’s so weird,” Gwen vocalizes as the two narrow their eyes and visually examine Peter.

 

“It’s not as weird as you think it is,” Peter tells them shortly, dropping his arms from his head with a put-upon sigh. “Are you two done? Stressing me out? Please?”

 

“Aww,” Gwen coos, scooting closer to the screen so that Peter can get a good look at her mockingly sympathetic face. Jerk. “Go ahead and open your present, Petey. Shipping cost me an arm and leg to send it all the way back to nightly crime land.”

 

Pausing in his dramatics and mental anguish, Peter cocks his head – Gwen erupts into real cooing this time – and swivels until he’s facing the colorful box on the bed.

 

Johnny lounges, pretending to be nonchalant about the whole thing, as he watches Peter turn the box over and over, looking for an easily exploited way in.

 

Sure enough, Peter has the box unwrapped and opened with only a few delicate tugs of his gloved hands.

 

“Are you recording this?” Johnny mumbles to Gwen somewhere in the background, which is followed by a few stifled giggles, but Peter isn’t paying that much attention. Instead, he’s rubbing his hands flat against the plasticky surface of…

 

 _“The blanket,”_ Peter whispers with awe. Johnny stands up straight and makes confused noises at the spoken significance. He is ignored (again.)

 

“Yup!” Gwen crows, smiling so hard her eyes close. “An entire patterned comforter, just for you.” She leans to the side as if pointing herself towards Johnny and lifts her eyebrows. “Now who’s ‘winning this thing,’ huh, hot stuff?”

 

 _“Uh,_ between you and me,” Johnny hastily shoots back as Peter reverently begins unzipping the clear plastic cover, “I still save his life, like, every other week. So who’s _really_ winning this now, huh, ‘ _hot stuff’?”_

 

“Well,” Gwen cracks her knuckles, visually checking on Peter. He’s too busy pulling off his gloves and wiggling his fingers in bated excitement to pay attention to their conversation. “Between you and me, sure. But what about between you, me, Mary-Jane, _and_ Harry?”

 

Johnny is struck into a stunned silence as his mouth falls open.

 

Peter, on the other hand, is having the time of his life.

 

“Ohh, my gosh,” Peter groans as he buries his bare hands into the partially opened package. “Gwen, holy cow. This- this isn’t fair; I haven’t gotten you anything. _Oh no._ This is _great.”_

 

Peter runs first his fingertips, then his whole palm over the flattened blanket. Its raised, bumpy texture tugs lightly at the microhairs on his palms, adding even more pleasant feelings to the repetitive, tactile movements.

 

“It’s even in that ugly mud color you seem to adore so much,” Gwen comments as she wrinkles her nose.

 

Peter did note the color when he opened the package, yes. To him, most earth-toned fabrics are perfect. Clearly, his friends just don’t have the same taste, and prefer bright, somewhat overwhelming colors instead.

 

Although, he’s sort of a hypocrite – the Captain America fanboy inside of him just couldn’t pass up the red and blue suit opportunity.

 

“Mmph, thank you for the ugly mud blanket,” Peter mumbles easily as he continues to caress the flat side of the folded material.

 

Unexpectedly, Peter is brought out of his stimming semi-trance when somebody clears their throat from a few paces too close. He looks up to see Johnny, face a tad more serious and focused than he’s ever seen.

 

“Heeeyy, Spidey?” Johnny says roundly, narrowing his eyes in some undecipherable way. “Can I pick you up for a sec’? I need to uh…” Here, he _shifts_ a _shifty_ glance towards Gwen’s continued vision. “I need to show Gwen something important.”

 

Peter cocks his head to the side, notes the suspiciously silent Gwen, and understands that his gut is telling him to give a very firm ‘no,’ possibly even to leave as soon as possible.

 

So, obviously, he goes against all instinct and innocently allows this request with a half-dazed shrug and an “Eh, sure.”

 

Johnny picks him up all the time, and vice versa. It’s an ‘on the job’ thing that they tend not to talk about too often.

 

It is still a bit physically surprising when Johnny does just that – picks Peter up like he’s some kind of bony, long-limbed dog that you can’t drop because they probably won’t know to land on their feet like cats do.

 

Peter can understand that. He’s carried a dog before, usually out of burning buildings and what-not. It wasn’t a very pleasant experience; sort of like holding a birdcage.

 

Johnny silently carries his cargo over to the large sky-facing window of the room, using one barely free hand to unlatch it and swing its clear pane open.

 

All that Peter’s comfortably blank mind can supply is a half-hearted ‘this is weird.’

 

The trustworthy spidey-senses don’t even tickle slightly when Johnny turns his head, stares straight into camera-Gwen’s eyes, then proceeds to upend the person in his arms out of the window with a terrifyingly blank expression that hides pure, vindictive triumph.

 

Peter goes quietly, neither his stomach nor mind jolting as he has done the exact same maneuver many a time of his own volition.

 

He doesn’t even scream when he notices the fluttering feeling of wind pushing against his bare, web-shooter-less hands.

 

It’s when he’s halfway through his impromptu trip down The Baxter Building, a dangerously numb feeling blooming in his chest about four seconds too late, that some people on the street seem to realize that Spiderman is, essentially, falling without a 'chute.

 

“Is that Spiderman?”

 

_“Spidey!”_

 

“Why isn’t he… _Oh, god!”_

 

Amid shouts of his title and his titled nickname, there is a familiar whooshing, breathing of air that sounds from behind him along with the shouted line of:

 

 _“I’ll_ save you, Spiderman!”

 

Heart finally in his throat, Peter’s body jerks to a stop, organs jumping from one side to another as he’s swooped up and away from the approaching ground by pressure on his back and under his knees. As the gasps from below – barely distinct from the formless waft of energy right next to his ear – taper off, he gets a good look up at his ‘savior.’

 

Johnny Storm beams proudly down at both Spiderman, now captured in his specifically de-flamed arms and chilled chest, and the mix between awed and apathetic crowd below observing all of this.

 

Peter wants to indignantly yell something like _‘what the donkey piss was that?’_ Instead, everything is jammed somewhere between his lungs and his throat, not allowing him to protest or really do anything at all as Johnny carries him to the flat top of The Baxter Building.

 

“Haha, hey, so, um,” Johnny says awkwardly as he flames-off, standing stagnant and stiff with Spiderman still in his arms. “Sorry… about that? I guess? Got a little bit ahead of myself, there… Hey, are you okay? Spidey? …Peter?”

 

Peter breathes low and deep under his mask, hands balled up close to his ribs as he slides out of Johnny’s arms and onto the concrete. He spends a few long moments simply crouching there, staring at the bright grey of the roof, before standing and deliberately moving away.

 

Johnny is about to say something – probably more awkward apologies full of guilt and regret – but it is interrupted by Spiderman gripping the sides of his own head and making a sort of indecipherable frustrated scream.

 

Soon after, he whips around and steps closer to a very, very nervous looking Johnny.

 

“Never,” Peter says lowly, “And I mean never, ever, do that again.”

 

“Never,” Johnny readily repeats, swallowing.

 

“Ne – “ Peter stresses, shooting up a hand to put a finger pointing dangerously close to Johnny’s nose, “ – ver. _Never._ Do you hear me, Johnny Storm?”

 

“I got it. I got you.” Johnny’s eyebrows do a funky little dance at his own wording as his eyes seem to roll slightly. “Sorry. Won’t happen again. Never again.”

 

Anymore stilted conversation that might occur is stopped by the roof door opening audibly, Reed’s head poking out and searching the area before he comes to land on Johnny and Peter standing near the edge, one with a fairly ticked-off mien and the other looking suitable cowed.

 

Reed steps out and begins making his way over to the two young adults, tiredly bumping into and generally colliding in some way with almost every concrete rise and metal doo-dad on the roof as he goes.

 

Peter feels the need to be at least marginally concerned, but after frequenting this ‘home’ for the past three years, he’s learned that this behavior is fairly normal from the insomniac doctor.

 

“Johnathan,” Reed says a bit softly, peering over at his wife’s younger brother with squinting eyes. “Remember that conversation that you, Sue, and I had about defenestrating people from your room?”

 

Johnny sighs, slumping his shoulders. “…Yes.”

 

Peter only shakes his head, fully believing that Johnny Storm did indeed have an ongoing problem with bodily ejecting people from the tower via one of the upper floors. This seems like a perfectly plausible character flaw to him, especially since he just got a ‘special’ first-hand experience.

 

He takes this lull of interaction as time to swipe his gloves back from Johnny’s person, startling the older of the two out of their simple dressing down.

 

“Eh, Spidey?” Johnny says a bit hopefully as Peter adjusts his web-shooters on his wrists and stands at the very edge of the building.

 

Peter takes a breath and turns, looking back. Reed is thankfully acting only as a silent bystander in all this.  Still, his presence might be the only thing keeping Peter from returning the heart-stopping favor to Johnny.

 

“…I’ll,” Peter sighs, some of the fight leaving him. He just can’t keep up when Johnny’s face looks like _that._ “I’ll text you my address.”

 

“Whoa, what?” Johnny gets out, surprised.

 

“You better deliver Gwen’s gift to me before it gets dark! There’s no way I’m sleeping without it tonight,” Peter commands, one hand on his twisted hip and the other pointing, once again, in Johnny’s direction. “And you have to stay for dinner – my aunt May’s making meatloaf.”

 

Johnny wrinkles his nose confusedly. “Isn’t this the same aunt May you say has cooking that tastes like pieces of rubber mixed with powdered milk and pond water?”

 

Peter cocks his head to the side mockingly, as if thinking about it. “Yup,” he responds shortly before webbing himself to the side of the building across from them in one fright-less leap.

 

A couple of people who must have stuck around to wait and watch from before clap when they see Spiderman, safe and sound, acrobatically leaving The Baxter Building. Peter tries to ignore that way his stomach swoops ephemerally, assured that his new fear would be just as temporary.

 

He makes a mental note to talk to Gwen later, mostly to thank her a thousand more times, and apologize for her having to sit by and watch as a known superhero apathetically tossed her best friend out the window with seemingly no remorse.

 

Oh; and he should probably tell her that he’s okay, too.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Breakdown of everyone's "styles":  
> \- MJ is very enthusiastic + competitive  
> \- Harry is under-handed/subtle + planning  
> \- Gwen is sincere + planning  
> \- Johnny blows whatever it is out of the water + competitive


	7. peter versus

 

After an utterly harrowing conversation with Gwen (“Do you need me to fly back over, Peter?” “No, Gwen, i- it's fine, he didn't mean - “ “My roommate plays rugby, Peter, and she's taught me some very interesting moves - “ “Oh my _god,_ _Gwen, no - “_ ) in which Peter had to do a disproportionate amount of damage control, the young hero sighs explosively as he slumps his way through the kitchen.

 

There's signs of a salad in the works spread all across the counter – most likely his aunt May has just stepped out or something.

 

All the better for Peter to make some bad decisions in peace.

 

The wrung out teen spots a partially shaved cucumber lying about on a cutting board. It's oblong and green and... quite compelling. He picks it up.

 

With a lack of foresight, Peter dolefully puts one side in his mouth and bites down, eliciting a satisfyingly crunchy sound and a small burst of chilled liquid onto his tongue. Refreshing.

 

He leans onto the counter and sighs heavily, chewing on his bad decision with a mind full of thoughts.

 

Aunt May chooses that time to come frantically waltzing in, hands full of bags, most likely being important ingredients to her recipe. She quietly halts as she blinks several times at the visage of her nephew, melted like a puddle over the counter and for all in the world looking like a sad giraffe as he slowly decimates the captured vegetable.

 

“I haven't washed that yet,” she informs him, slightly too flabbergasted at his behavior to offer anything else.

 

“...This is such a bad idea.” Chomp. Chew chew. “Why are you letting me do this.” Chomp chomp. Chew. Sigh.

 

“I'm not _letting_ you do anything,” May says as she delicately retrieves her vegetable from Peter's limp fingers. He only continues to chew his mouthful and pout at the wall, not at all moved.

 

May releases her own bout of sighs and, reaching behind the fridge, pulls out a plastic container that rattles around the flat yellow pallets inside.

 

Like a dog, Peter's head swivels around, eyes taking in the container seconds before he's up and repeatedly curling his fingers in the air, a universal sign for “gimme.”

 

“Ah- _ah!”_ May chides, pulling the box away slightly and artfully ignoring Peter's little whine. “If I give you this will you tell me why you're moping around my kitchen?”

 

“Yyyesss...” Peter gets out, though reluctantly, if his wandering eyes are anything to go by. “But, I reserve the right to... to omit the embarrassing parts.”

 

May huffs, but hands the treat over all the same. “Well, who can say no to that fa- Now, Peter, don't fall off of there!”

 

Peter finishes hopping on top of a cleared section of the counter, giving his aunt a crooked smile that never fails to make the people seeing it look at him with suspicion. “I won't.” His enhanced reflexes coupled with his need to not be a _total_ embarrassment will ensure that.

 

He pops open the plastic, unearthing the pile of hard, dried banana chips. The smell is absolutely divine, and the young vigilante wastes no time, the first chip disappearing into his mouth.

 

Crunch, crunch; heck yea.

 

Slowing down some, Peter recalls how his habit of nursing food like the world's softest safety blanket even came about. To his understanding, it's a combination of oral stimming and his fixation on food, courtesy of his anxiety (which is a whole other can of worms that involves the topic 'abandoned child' and similar words) which makes him quick to chew on something when stressed.

 

Case in point: Peter loves dried apple and banana chips. Except, aunt May buys in bulk, so whenever Peter would unwittingly give in to a shutdown or thought process that tied him up in loops, he would chew and chew and chew and chew and... Well, never stop.

 

Aunt May's solution? Hide a multitude of tiny containers full of those chips around the house, strategically whipping them out when in an appropriate crisis.

 

The only downfall being that this would put Peter right within May's well-to-do cross-hairs – the bane of his existence ever since he became Spiderman.

 

“So? Anything bothering you?” Aunt May asks lightly as if she didn't just orchestrate this whole conversation with only one look at her nephew and the power of strategically placed snack foods.

 

Peter drills his left canine into the center of a chip, mind working out how exactly he's going to break the news about how all four of his friends (one of which is a currently unknown affiliated super-celebrity in this household and will go unnamed) are fighting over his... Affection? Attention? Whatever – via the use of things of monetary value and questionably executed stunts.

 

...but he sighs for, like, the tenth time today, and sets about conceptualizing it to the best of his abilities while still making it sound way less worrying than it actually is.

 

For aunt May's sake, and all.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

As soon as Peter enters the cafe and gets a good look at Harry and MJ's faces, he knows, with a certain amount of trepidation, that he has landed himself in some particularly pungent fecal matter samples.

 

“…Hhhhey,” Peter draws out as he slides into the seat across from the two. They continue to stare into his very soul. Gulp. “How's um... How's it going? Guys? Golems? Okay, that one was bad – your, your faces remind me of stone, so I just – “

 

“James Isaac Neutron,” MJ spells out with a ghastly tone that has Peter widening his eyes and sitting up straight. Harry deigns a mouth twitch that breaks the somewhat steely facade.

 

“That's- that's not my name - “

 

“You've been hiding something from us,” MJ states.

 

Peter scratches the side of his face and looks out the wide window to the left, diverting. “Oh, I have, have I?” What a way to start the day.

 

“Don't look so lofty, Peter,” Harry cuts in with, reaching into the folds of his designer jacket to pull something out. “We have proof this time.”

 

Oh – ‘this time’, huh?

 

Peter obtusely takes a drink of his too-hot coffee to try and mask his spike of fear and subsequent wince.

 

Surely, if this conversation were about his status as Spiderman in disguise, his friends would have tact so as to not unveil him in such a public place. Right?

 

Peter gives MJ’s vindictive and determined face another glance.

 

Oh boy.

 

Harry drops a sheath of high-res photos, glossy and accusing, on top of the table and in front of Peter like they’re in some kind of interrogation scene in a cop show.

 

Oh _boy._

 

“This is…” Peter trails off, fingers lightly sticking to the tops of the somewhat blurry photos, marring the surface. “This is great, you guys. You really… really outdid yourselves this time with, with the whole ‘let’s stalk Peter’ thing.” He’s getting bitter.

 

“I know,” Harry says with a tiny, self-satisfied smirk that would’ve made Peter laugh any other day.

 

“I’m not congratulating you,” Peter feels the need to announce. He’s not sure that it does any good.

 

“Your Aunt called me,” MJ adds in before sipping her tea, looking a bit put-out at apparently not being the main benefactor of what looks to be a team effort. “She said that she was worried about your ‘fourth friend’ mistreating you or something.”

 

“Ah,” Peter voices in a weak tone, “Good on- good old aunt May…”

 

He holds up a photo of Johnny Storm standing just outside The Daily Bugle’s building.

 

Though Peter assumes that the real star of the show is himself, looking infinitely frustrated with the super (literally) model in a frozen dubious expression.  He remembers those feelings vividly, as they are reoccurring ones when dealing with the youngest Fantastic Four member.

 

Trying to act as casual as possible, Peter deftly leafs through the other six photos. They’re all mostly the same – a disgruntled photographer slash college student making weird faces and throwing their arms around (oh, gosh – that’s kind of embarrassing to look at, actually) at a seemingly unaffected and jovial, if slightly cowed, celebrity.

 

Peter breathes out what is actually a sigh of relief – no incriminating evidence alluding to his arachnid double life here – but masks it as a huff of frustration, thumb rubbing at his wrinkled forehead.

 

“So, this is- this is what you two do, now?” Peter questions, jerking his hand a little bit at the pile of photos. “Stand outside where I work and take pictures if I don’t come out alone?”

 

MJ and Harry at least have enough decency to look somewhat ruffled, in their own ways. It’s probably because of Peter’s tone – he’s not in his mask, but this conversation is eerily familiar to ones that he’s had with the Avengers before…

 

“We didn’t take those,” MJ says, finally. “Someone else did.”

 

“A Fantastic Four fanatic, no doubt,” Harry adds, ceasing to play with the sugar packets in favor of slow-leaning back into his chair like his repressed inside model was waiting to burst forth. Which is infinitely hilarious since an actual model sits not but a foot to his right. “I just happened to have the… resources, to get to them first.”

 

Before Peter can respond – a thank you? A dismissal? More questions? – MJ leans forward and peers into his eyes.

 

He tries not to automatically lean back and look away like the guilty wet blanket that everyone at this table knows he is.

 

“Peter,” MJ says, heavily, like this is an important conversation or something. Maybe it is. Harry looks happy enough letting the girl next to him take the reins. “Your Aunt’s worried that this friend may be causing you some… trouble. Is Johnny Storm…?”

 

MJ trails off like the rest of her sentence is obvious. Maybe it is. Once again, maybe Peter’s missing something.

 

“Noooo,” Peter tries to assuage, waving his hands around before pinning them to the table in light of the high school kids giving him weird eyes a few seats over. “No, no no no; Johnny isn’t- Johnny wouldn’t- you just… You’ve got it all wrong.”

 

Peter sighs and runs his fingers through his hair. “We just had, you know, one of those things, that- that friends do, where you- where he did something that you didn’t like, but he apologized! So we’re all good. It’s all good.”

 

It’s probably not all good, since it’s still bothering Peter quite a bit, but these two don’t need to know that. If they did, then it would stand that he would have to explain why _they’re_ apart of the problem – the _conundrum_ – as well.

 

“And I really don’t appreciate you two ganging up on me like this,” Peter tells them – slowly, deliberately, so that they can get the full brunt of his ‘I am disappointed in you’ tone and face. He modeled it after Captain America’s exact same mien. "You don't need to- to sneak around behind my back and plot about how you- how you're gonna ambush me. Just let's- just have a normal conversation with me!"

 

Before MJ can huff and rattle off some perfectly believable excuse – sorry, _‘explanation’_ – Harry lowers his sunglasses just enough to give Peter an imploring look with dark, soulful eyes full of calculation and familiarity.

 

“Of course, Peter,” Harry says invitingly, smoothly. Darn him. “We shouldn’t have gotten ahead of ourselves like this. It was out of line for us to assume that you couldn’t take care of yourself.”

 

As per usual, Peter is sometimes floored beyond rational thought when interacting with Harry. All that the human arachnid can do is nod dumbly, unsure if a ‘thank you’ would be appropriate here.

 

Thankfully, he doesn’t have to decide that, as he and his two friends begin acting as if that whole harrowing conversation (intervention?) never happened, starting up a topic full of semantics and barbs and hidden jokes that he can barely keep up with, but is happy to be a part of anyway.

 

He’s sort of glad, but also sort of wary. Especially when MJ takes the time to stare off into the distance in periodic intervals, uncharacteristic of her usual outing behavior. She’s always on her toes in time to trade quiet challenges with Harry, though, so it must not be that important. Peter shrugs it off, as he is prone to doing when he’s thinking himself into a loop.

 

When he gets home, however, he immediately opens his phone and texts Johnny a very frank ‘this is all your fault.’ Then, as an equally peeved afterthought, texts Gwen a ‘yours too’, knowing by now that the two would be able to work out the full message in no time, what with their increased contact with one another recently.

 

Peter still fully blames himself for allowing Johnny to obtain Gwen’s number in the first place.

 

Pretending not to be as bitter as he feels, Peter settles down for a stress nap before working out his lingering frustration on the dampened streets of nightly New York.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> p.s. i completely forgot to explain why johnny wears a binder even though he's an adult with money who can get top surgery. thing is that he can't, actually, get top surgery, due to his volatile powers, since going under/surgery is used for only the most dire emergencies. too dangerous otherwise.
> 
> either way, he's been binding for such a long time and has been on T for so long that he doesn't even need to bind while in his suit. he only binds when out of his suit, and even then, only when not at home.


	8. MJ vs ??? + DP

 

Incomprehensible yelling followed by Peter rapidly backing out of a room, face pinched and pale.

 

 _“Send me pictures of_ Spiderman, _or send me your_ resignation!”

 

A door slam.

 

Stilted silence.

 

...

 

The office slowly returns to its normal volume, people ceasing to stare at a tense Peter and go about their business. That was, after all, a near daily show that they just witnessed. Nothing new to report here.

 

Peter lets out a breath, his shoulders dropping and eyes slowly releasing from their harsh squint, a natural response after having a giant piece of wood nearly collide with one’s face.

 

Apparently, trying to turn in photos of the _very real_ disaster that included and entire truck of corn tipped over that morning wasn’t as important as photographing Spiderman clinging to the side of said truck and screeching as it went down.

 

Who’d’ve thought it.

 

Peter rubs the bruise on his back from nearly being crushed by a truck and way too much corn as he makes his way back down the building. He decides to rectify his “stunt”, as JJJ would call it, by getting some really up-close photos of… well, of his own spandex clad butt.

 

Once again, Peter wonders why he allows this to happen. Doesn’t he have any dignity? Shame?

 

…Peter purses his lips and doesn’t trust himself to answer that mentally.

 

When he gets down onto the streets, walking sort of aimlessly – should he go home? Take more pictures? Who knows – he checks his phone. He knows that he got several messages from both Gwen and Johnny, but he ran out so fast this morning in order to get to class (late, might he add) that he forgot to read them.

 

Predictably, both of their messages are along the same lines. Quoting each other, ‘Johnny said this’, ‘Gwen said that’, winky faces, gross flirting that he will never, ever take seriously, and just a whole lot of schmoozing and cajoling in general.

 

He firmly blames Johnny for influencing Gwen like this. She was never this bad before she unofficially met the Fantastic Four member.

 

Unusual, however, is the singular text from MJ. His phone says that it’s a fairly hefty text in terms of characters, but the only line that Peter can see from the unopened file is ‘I have an idea.’

 

Oh dear. _That’s_ never good.

 

Hastily, Peter merges into a deserted alcove next to what appears to be renovations for a new Starbucks (why? There’s one a block down. New York is so confusing sometimes) and bends over his phone, one trembling finger opening the text.

 

It’s an entire paragraph detailing for MJ apologizes for cornering Peter like she did, and how she wants to apologize to Mr. Storm himself… Personally.

 

The last line is, for all things, innocent. A time and place to meet.

 

To Peter it looks like a diabolical plan laid out to drain the city of its electricity in order to power a doom device.

 

He rubs a nervous hand across his chin and mouth, circling his lips with a finger as he stares off into space so long that the screen goes dark.

 

Telling Johnny is out of the question – the hothead will most certainly jump at the chance to meet one of Peter’s friends, especially unsupervised. He may even take measures to keep Peter away from the meeting. Knowing him, he would succeed. Annoyingly.

 

…but if Peter doesn’t do as MJ requests, and doesn’t tell Johnny, then who will he tell? Aunt May? Surely, the older woman could give the younger a good talking to…

 

Then again, Peter reasons, aunt May was the reason that he’s in this mess in the first place.

 

Point, his mind says, like he’s debating between two separate people instead of with himself.

 

Peter physically shakes his head at his weirdness, shoving his phone back into his bag and making his way home.

 

Hopefully, his own plan wouldn’t go awry, like MJ’s will be if he has any say in it.

 

 

* * *

 

 

 

Swinging to the location sent via MJ’s text, Peter begins to realize that he’s in the amorphous ‘bad part’ of Manhattan, labeled as if there weren’t several in existence.

 

Not but two seconds later, a cry for help, high and frightened, sounds from somewhere within the fluorescent darkness. Without much thought, he rises – and falls – to meet them.

 

Within moments, he’s picked out two people cornering a single red-head in an alley, who clutches at her equally red bag. Something that looks like broken lipstick – mace, maybe? – sits on the ground at her feet in several pieces.

 

“Looks like my meeting will have to be postponed,” Peter says in his best business-man voice, thumping lightly down behind two darkly clad people with their backs to him. They both jump apart and fling themselves around to greet him, all polite and scared-like. “I don’t pay you weasels to slack off like this. Are we running a company, here, or a public latrine?”

 

 _“Buzz off!”_ Commands one of them, brandishing a pocket knife.

 

Peter pretends to cock his head and think about it, hand rubbing at his chin. “You know what, fella, I think you’re on to something.” He deftly webs the knife out of their hand. The other person squeals. “I haven’t heard _that_ particular one in at least a week! Bravo – you’ve broken a record!”

 

“I’m gonna _break your_ _face_ if you don’t – !” Peter webs the other one’s knife too. They squeal _again._ Classic.

 

“Really, guys, come on,” Peter taunts, stepping closer even as they both raise their fists. He lazily dodges any attempts at a hit. “Two tiny knives? If you think one bug joke is going to get you to the top, then you need some new material, _stat.”_

 

“Fuck – “

 

“Naughty,” Peter admonishes, webbing that one up to the wall as they try to grab him and fail. “I want new ideas on my desk by 8 AM Monday, sharp.”

 

“Hey, c’mon,” the one not stuck to a wall like a mustard and baloney sandwich begins to beg, putting their hands up and shaking their head with wide eyes. “I like you, Spidey, Spiderman, let’s not- we we’re just – “

 

“You were just walking this nice young girl home, right?” Peter asks him, nodding his head like he’s sympathetic and putting a hand on their shoulder.

 

They nod too, and slowly lower their arms, breathing becoming relieved. “Yea, yea, we we’re just – “

 

“Nope,” Peter says as he webs that one up to join their buddy. Webs their mouth for good measure while he’s at it. The simpering ones are always too noisy. “Not buying it. Sorry folks. Your sales pitch was denied.” He claps his hands together and pretends to smile at them. “Good luck at the temp agency.”

 

Peter then focuses his attention on the person still huddled at the back of the alley. She slowly stands now, as he approaches, her eyes flickering down to the shattered defensive item like it was going to repair itself, jump up and help her.

 

“Hey,” Peter says, voice soft. “Are you hurt? It’s okay –“ He chokes on his scripted reassurances, whole body freezing.

 

He blames his loose filter for what comes out of his mouth next.

 

_“Mary-Jane!?”_

 

Oh, boy.

 

Mary-Jane’s head whips up, brazenly staring him in the eyes (eye holes. Goggles. Giant white bug glasses – _whatever_ ) whereas before she kept her gaze strictly on the ground and the mouth of the alley. “How do you know who I am?”

 

“Uh…” Peter says, ever the intelligent one. “I’m uh… I’m… Spiderman?” Nailed it. He’s lying to himself. He failed to nail it. It’s flying over his head as they speak. It’s out of his ballpark now.

 

Shoot. Of all the times for a homerun.

 

MJ’s perceptive eyes narrow, then fly open with revelation. “Hey… You’re friends with Johnny Storm, right?”

 

“I… Yes?” Why does it sound like he’s questioning this?

 

“A- _ha!”_ MJ crows, smacking her palm against her bag and smiling at him with a twinkle in her eye – like she wasn’t just _held up at knifepoint._ Oh, MJ. “I knew it. So, he sent you to come and get me?”

 

What. “What.”

 

“Well,” MJ breathes, tossing her long red hair over her shoulder as she steps way too into Peter’s personal space. He has to stand up extra straight and pull his shoulders back just so that he can have a scant inch on her. Yikes. “What are we waiting for? Take me to him, noble spider-steed.”

 

“I… I can’t do that,” Peter refutes weakly.  He practically flinches when a hawk-eyed gaze snaps to him, irritated and stunning. Whoa.

 

“Why not?” She questions, looking at him like she expects an explanation by, like, _yesterday._

 

“He’s busy,” Peter explains stiltedly. “So… So I’m here to tell you that… He’s busy.” He has to fight not to hunch over, draw in his shoulders, and to keep his voice as low and throaty and as un-Peter-Parker-like as possible. He doesn’t know what he’d do if MJ could so easily see through his disguise.

 

“Oh…” MJ sort of deflates, looking off to the side in that way she does when her perfectly laid plans need to be re-calculated. Not thrown away – _never_ thrown away – just modified. “Well, shit.”

 

“Language,” he tells her automatically. She looks at him strangely. Gulp. “Well… I mean… Since I’m here… And I _am_ your loyal spider-steed…” She looks at him even stranger. Right; get to the point, Parker. “Is there anywhere that I can take you where you’re safe?” And not gallivanting around in an alley like it’s Marti Gras?

 

“…I suppose so, since you’re offering,” she barely even needs to stop and think about it. “I know a place.” She rattles off the address. Peter has acute heart palpitations. “Oh, it’s in – “

 

“Queens,” Peter fills in automatically. Then he covertly winces.

 

“How did you know that?” She’s giving him the stink eye. Oh joy.

 

He pretends to shrug stoically. “I’m Spiderman; I know where everything is.” At the same time, he’s beating himself up inside. Way to be subtle, Parker.

 

After some awkward conversation, 911 called to pick up the human cargo, and one half-fight (“Are you sure? I can hold you if you – “, “I’m strong enough to piggyback. Are you saying that I’ll fall? Are you going to let me fall?”, “Oh, geez, no, I won’t let you fall – “, “Then what’s the problem?”, “…Nothing.”, “Bend over, Mister Spider.”, “Yes'm.”) the two are swinging through the city until the tallest buildings are simple three story apartments and they’re downgraded to walking.

 

And then Peter has to deal with walking MJ right up to his own door and not breaking down into inexpiable hysterics over it.

 

“Hey,” Peter stops her before she tries to escape up the stairs. She reluctantly turns back and gives him a face that just screams ‘what the hell do you want now.’ “Make sure to get that lipstick replaced, ya’ hear? I heard that it’s really potent against those ugly pug-snatchers these days.”

 

She squints at him like she can’t believe the words that are coming out of his mouth.

 

Frankly, my dear, neither can I.

 

“You never know when you may need a surprise make-over!” He defends, hands in the air, as he spins around and leaps onto the nearest building, climbing around the back and out of sight.

 

Still – he sticks around long enough to watch MJ as she knocks on the door and is greeted by a sleepy-looking aunt May. It is nearly midnight, after all.

 

Without much of a fuss, May lets MJ into the house, seemingly overjoyed that another one of Peter’s friends would be coming over. More so it being MJ, the person who she confided in about her Peter-flavored troubles.

 

Peter, on the other hand, is busting his gut trying to get back to where he webbed his backpack – and thus his change of clothes – to the underside of an abandoned van some neighborhood over. He knows that aunt May probably expects him to be in his room, either sleeping or shopping photos or doing homework.

 

He takes a gamble and guesses that aunt May already checked his room, apologized to MJ for his absence, and grumbled “Where could that boy have gone off to?”

 

So he makes sure to breeze in through the door, smack a wet one onto May’s surprised (yet resigned) cheek, and then fall into the story of how he went out to chase Spiderman for some photos, as per his boss’s request.

 

He also pretends not to be out of breath when he spots MJ sitting at his kitchen table, blatantly not nursing the steaming cup of something next to her elbow. Smart girl.

 

“MJ!” Peter says, eyes wide and mouth slack. Play it up, play it up. “What are- what are you doing here so late?”

 

MJ does not look amused.

 

Peter plops himself down at the table, politely waves off May’s offer for – tea? Coffee? Hot chocolate? Who knows. Peter sure doesn’t want to – and pretends not to notice how she hovers near the stairs to listen in. Oh, aunt May; the bigger apple of his big apple eye.

 

“So uh… How’d you- your meeting with Johnny go?” Peter asks, innocently, and somewhat eagerly.

 

Instead of detailing her meeting with both her near doom and Spiderman, she gracefully dodges the subject. Peter doesn’t chase after it, allowing MJ to tell him all about how she would be back to the city of love, Paris, by next week.

 

Peter sends her off in a cab, genuinely sad to see her go, but still infinitely relieved of the bullet he just dodged.

 

Of course, he’s incredibly confused when his phone vibrates with a new message, mere moments after he’s said his goodnights to aunt May and squirreled himself away in his room.

 

Even more – it’s a text from the unknown contact in his phone that is only labeled with a line of spider emoji’s. He very rarely gets texts from this number, and only keeps it in his phone for when they send more nonsense forward.

 

Still, he’s begrudgingly amused whenever he gets the chance to open a new message from them.

 

‘so i herd u were lookin for a sugar daddy ;;;))))’

 

…What the heck.

 

Peter hesitates on responding. Usually he doesn’t, though there was one time when this mysterious stranger sent him a photo of what he presumed to be their gun collection along with the caption ‘does this get you randy??’ to which he responded a very empathetic ‘NO!!!’ and shut his phone off for a few harrowing days.

 

Thankfully, whoever they are, they seem to take his dismissals seriously (to a point), as they didn’t send him any follow up messages of equally disturbing content.

 

He debates on sending the childish ‘new phone, who dis’, but he feels like it’ll open up a whole new line of conversation. He’d really rather this person just leave him alone, especially on this ‘sugar daddy’ subject.

 

Peter’s friends aren’t his ‘sugar daddies.’ They aren’t.

 

“Denial,” a voice that sounds strangely like a mix between Johnny’s and Gwen’s – that or Gwen imitating Johnny – says in his head.

 

Scoffing, Peter opens up a new message, responding with a crass ‘sorry, but I already have four. No new positions available.’

 

Still, he makes sure to shut his phone off and bury it under his socks. Just in case they text again and his stupid spider-filter doesn’t stop the baffling baloney that comes out of his brain in time.

 

Peter laughs lightly into the softness of his pillow, hands raking over the patterned blanket draped over his bed.

 

Ah, yes. His ‘sugar daddies.’

 

What a riot.

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let's tally the points.
> 
>  _Johnny_ : +100 for regularly saving Peter's life. -99 for tossing him out a window and just generally being insufferable.  
>  _Harry_ : +100 for (attempting) to financially support Peter and get him out of the house. -50 for under-handed butt touches and stalker-ish tendencies.  
>  _Gwen_ : +100 for being an all-around good person who knows how to support Peter no matter what. -30 for associating with the Peter's Public Enemy Number One (PPENO), Johnny.  
>  _MJ_ : +100 for being the original Peter's Number One Sugar Daddy (PNOS.) -100 for being PNOS. -1000 for the attempted endangerment stunt.  
>  _DP_ : LATE TO PARTY, WHA HAPPEND??

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [Out The Window](https://archiveofourown.org/works/7729675) by [Biromantic_Nerd](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Biromantic_Nerd/pseuds/Biromantic_Nerd)




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